A secret of child rearing you'd never hear on Oprah

Jake Rudnitsky desribes the horrors of living in shitty boroughs of the city of Irkutsk in this article.
He wrote:
But for at least a few of the residents of these crumbling houses, they mark progress. For all their faults, these houses do give poor young couples their only opportunity to move out from their parents'. Twenty-four-year-old Lena and her husband have been renting a small two-room apartment in a house dating back to 1890 for four years already. They have a two-year-old daughter Katya, who is well behaved like all kids kept slightly hungry.



Это бы было смешно, если бы не было так грустно - it would be funny it weren't so sad, they say in Russian... What else can I add?

Canadian elections: a personal observation.

For those of you who reside outside of the Great White North, Canada is in the midst of an election fever. In practice, it means countless article in newspapers, musing of analysts on CBC, special 'election buses' travelin' 'cost to cost' and so on.
I will undoubtedly post more on the subject in the near future, but right now I want to go back to the year 2000 when I, fresh of the boat :-), had an opportunity to seek a real democracy in motion (this pathos is approriate given the fact that the elections in Russia I had a chance to partake in were well, 'Russian-style' to say the least).

So, once I asked my landlord, a buffy, nerdy guy in his middle thirties who is going to vote for. He put up that special face, trying to look smart and sound authoritative and said something like this:

Well, I don't know yet but for sure I am not voting for the [separatist]Block (Quebecue)for they want to destroy mu country....

Indeed, the Block stands for separation that is why it runs candidates only... well, only Quebec so my landlord couldn't have voted for it anyway since said conversation took place in Edmonton, Alberta :-)

Интересное наблюдение

Взято с одного интернет-форума)
>ещё чуть-чуть и дармовое жилье пойдет под молоток за неуплату жилищных услуг

Да, есть такое дело. Россиянские лейберальные экономисты считают, что нужно отобрать приватизированное жилье у быдла в целях побуждения оного к созидательному труду, а то, дескать, в собственных квартирах водку пьют и на дачах закуску выращивают заместо тяжело работать в целях удвоевыевывания ВВП. Однако, сделать это прямыми административными мерами нельзя, даже нынешний оккупационный режим на это пойти не может. Для этого и задумана реформа ЖКХ.